CATEGORY

The fervor of the Nazi counterattack against the advancing Allies stunned generals and troops alike. In his account of the 1944 post-Normandy campaign, historian Robin Neillands unpicks events from the media myths that have come to surround them to get to the truth of what really happened. He examines the often difficult relationship between General Eisenhower and British Field Marshal Montgomery. If Eisenhower had taken his advice, would the Allies have made quicker progress? Could the war in Europe have been won in 1944 if the right strategies had been employed?

Robin Neillands, widely acclaimed author of a number of important books on World War II in particular and military history in general, here takes on one of the most integral moments of the most significant war in our recent history. The battles of the Ardennes campaign--The Battle of the Bulge--decided the war in western Europe, and in The Battle for the Rhine, Neillands tells us the large-scale story of how this fight altered the course of the war.

Who was really responsible for the failure at Nijmegen, the destruction of the British 1st Airborne Division at Arnhem and the failure of Operation Market Garden? Why was Montgomery threatened with the sack when he had just retrieved Bradley's failure in the Battle of the Bulge? Was General Eisenhower's command strategy either workable or wise, and did Bradley and Patton undermine it? Even after sixty years, the questions remain. With superb battle narratives, and clear analysis of success and failure at every point, Neillands casts a new and informed light on the costly struggle for the Rhine--the gateway to the heart of Europe. Would this be the beginning of the end? It did not seem so. In The Battle for the Rhine, Robin Neillands has pulled off a triumph of military and political narrative.